i'd have to agree here. back before buffer overrun protection, i had a collection of about 30 or so "coasters" at one time. they make horrible coasters, though, and if you leave a drink on it too long, the cd can actually stick to your coffee table or wherever, making it much much worse than having no coaster at all. they are fun to microwave, though (don't use your own microwave, use the public dorm microwave or something). also, a friend of mine had his ceiling lined with various coasters (aol, bad burns, very old ms works/office cds, whatever)...flash some strobing colored lights on it, and it looks damn cool. and, of course, you can always sharpen the edges up and use them like ninja stars. good for annoying little sisters, annoying neighbors, and the cat. or start up a league of CD golf. all these uses, and people refer to them by the one option that is the least useful.
Pokemon?? You're talking about a cartoon whose purpose is to get kids to buy more products from nintendo. Hell, the show's slogan is "Gotta Catch 'em All!" the stories are just that : let's go around a fictional world, and find NEW pokemon and catch them, cuz we don't have one of THOSE yet! I never considered this anime "fine", because it's too blatant of an advertisement (as opposed to He-man, another popular advertisement for video games). Besides, minimum wage or not, the dubbing and translation of Pokemon is pretty decent, as mentioned in another post.
Dragon Ball Z also has a decent translation/dub as far as translation/dubs go. Seriously, if the Akira translation and dub were better, I'm sure it would have gotten more exposure. Like anything, even with an excellent story with comical, political, and psychological connotations, bad acting can still ruin it. Which is what us Americans got. How many times have you watched a dub and thought "Hell, even *I* could do better!!"
My little sister love anime, such as Pokemon, Gundam Wing, and even an occasional Dragon Ball Z. She loves my Escaflowne vcds (subbed), too. However, she doesn't find the Vampire Hunter D or Akira dubs to be all that interesting, though, partly due to the way they are presented, with the bad voice acting and old-school animation (likewise, she doesn't like the original Dragon Ball, due to animation, though I consider it superior). I guarantee though, that if the STORY, which is the whole point, was presented in a more agreeable way, she would love it. My parents don't watch anime regularly (though my mom has been known to watch a couple), but I bet they would watch this and love it. I think that Akira, while breathtaking, and very artsy, is more about the story, in constrast to the "special" effects. Sure, there are very cool parts, like Tetsuo obliterating the staff in the hospital corridor with his mind, or the blobby-tentacally tetsuo at the end. But it's tetsuo's upward (or downward?) spiral from a runt biker to the powerful entity that makes the movie a blast. Unfortunately, most Americans get so turned off by the bad acting and dated animations that they will never really see this movie for what it is.
Remaking a movie isn't messing it up, it's just showing it from a different angle to get part of the audience that the first version didn't. Hell, if remaking something was messing it up, why "remake" any book in movie form? I mean, many books were just fine until some movie exec paid for a screenwriter to translate it....
i'm a CS grad student and didn't have to take the CS test, but merely the general test. i'm not fully sure, but i think GRE scores are much more important for foreign students. However, if you want to go to grad school and your undergrad GPA is shit, then acing the GRE is a good way to get past that limitation (this is, in fact, what i did). However, a chinese friend of mine actually did better than me on verbal, for one, which surprised me, until i realized why. They HAVE to study harder and do better, because, as someone said in another post, international GRE scores are often a joke, and since there are so many foreign applicants, they have to do better than all the rest. American students have an "in" just being american, because it is often easier to get grants and funding for american students. so, only that top.5% of foreign applicants actually get accepted (and then they still have to worry about the percentage of visas issued, etc). all in all - does it matter? yes, but especially YES if you are not american. (this is, of course, assuming you are applying to american schools!!) --paul
personally, i don't find keanu to be the greatest actor in the world, and i certainly don't want to ever see him even attempt to be superman, but i still believe there are many more movies in which he does NOT say "Dude" or "Woah" than those in which he does. By saying something like that, one might be led to believe that you judge an actor's entire career on the basis that he played in a really shitty movie early in his career. Not defending keanu so much as pointing out the ignorance you _portray_ (reguardless of how much you may actually know about keanu's career).
--p
if you want to learn about some of the many variations of GA, try doing a search on ieeexplore.ieee.org (assuming you are a member) or try www.researchindex.org (free) note that these are both research sites, and so learning something like this from research papers can have a steep curve. i'm sure many academic books cover the subject, too.
another topic that would be interesting to use is neural networks (some might say that is obvious, and i would agree) the realm is similar to GA, but VERY different in the guts of the solution.
hmm, suppose the husband has a computer. now, suppose he is asleep, so the computer is not doing much (seti and whatnot aside). now suppose the wife has a wireless mouse. suppose, now, software (screensaver-like thingy) is running on the computer so that when there is a slight movement of the mouse, it pops up, plays your favorite mp3 (or least favorite, if you want the poor guy to actually get up)
so, if the guy has a computer, he only needs to get a wireless mouse (or a long enough wire, perhaps would also work...) if he has that, then all he needs is this software, which i'm sure could be written by any number of people on here very easily and quickly.
Slashdot Mirror
--paul
Pokemon?? You're talking about a cartoon whose purpose is to get kids to buy more products from nintendo. Hell, the show's slogan is "Gotta Catch 'em All!" the stories are just that : let's go around a fictional world, and find NEW pokemon and catch them, cuz we don't have one of THOSE yet! I never considered this anime "fine", because it's too blatant of an advertisement (as opposed to He-man, another popular advertisement for video games). Besides, minimum wage or not, the dubbing and translation of Pokemon is pretty decent, as mentioned in another post.
Dragon Ball Z also has a decent translation/dub as far as translation/dubs go. Seriously, if the Akira translation and dub were better, I'm sure it would have gotten more exposure. Like anything, even with an excellent story with comical, political, and psychological connotations, bad acting can still ruin it. Which is what us Americans got. How many times have you watched a dub and thought "Hell, even *I* could do better!!"
My little sister love anime, such as Pokemon, Gundam Wing, and even an occasional Dragon Ball Z. She loves my Escaflowne vcds (subbed), too. However, she doesn't find the Vampire Hunter D or Akira dubs to be all that interesting, though, partly due to the way they are presented, with the bad voice acting and old-school animation (likewise, she doesn't like the original Dragon Ball, due to animation, though I consider it superior). I guarantee though, that if the STORY, which is the whole point, was presented in a more agreeable way, she would love it. My parents don't watch anime regularly (though my mom has been known to watch a couple), but I bet they would watch this and love it. I think that Akira, while breathtaking, and very artsy, is more about the story, in constrast to the "special" effects. Sure, there are very cool parts, like Tetsuo obliterating the staff in the hospital corridor with his mind, or the blobby-tentacally tetsuo at the end. But it's tetsuo's upward (or downward?) spiral from a runt biker to the powerful entity that makes the movie a blast. Unfortunately, most Americans get so turned off by the bad acting and dated animations that they will never really see this movie for what it is.
Remaking a movie isn't messing it up, it's just showing it from a different angle to get part of the audience that the first version didn't. Hell, if remaking something was messing it up, why "remake" any book in movie form? I mean, many books were just fine until some movie exec paid for a screenwriter to translate it....
--paul
actually, the side pipes take you to the minus world. the middle pipe takes you to world 5, i believe.
--paul
i'm a CS grad student and didn't have to take the CS test, but merely the general test. i'm not fully sure, but i think GRE scores are much more important for foreign students. However, if you want to go to grad school and your undergrad GPA is shit, then acing the GRE is a good way to get past that limitation (this is, in fact, what i did). However, a chinese friend of mine actually did better than me on verbal, for one, which surprised me, until i realized why. They HAVE to study harder and do better, because, as someone said in another post, international GRE scores are often a joke, and since there are so many foreign applicants, they have to do better than all the rest. American students have an "in" just being american, because it is often easier to get grants and funding for american students. so, only that top .5% of foreign applicants actually get accepted (and then they still have to worry about the percentage of visas issued, etc). all in all - does it matter? yes, but especially YES if you are not american. (this is, of course, assuming you are applying to american schools!!)
--paul
personally, i don't find keanu to be the greatest actor in the world, and i certainly don't want to ever see him even attempt to be superman, but i still believe there are many more movies in which he does NOT say "Dude" or "Woah" than those in which he does. By saying something like that, one might be led to believe that you judge an actor's entire career on the basis that he played in a really shitty movie early in his career. Not defending keanu so much as pointing out the ignorance you _portray_ (reguardless of how much you may actually know about keanu's career). --p
there are plenty of places to find info on this on the internet. one such place is The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to Evolutionary Computation
if you want to learn about some of the many variations of GA, try doing a search on ieeexplore.ieee.org (assuming you are a member) or try www.researchindex.org (free) note that these are both research sites, and so learning something like this from research papers can have a steep curve. i'm sure many academic books cover the subject, too. another topic that would be interesting to use is neural networks (some might say that is obvious, and i would agree) the realm is similar to GA, but VERY different in the guts of the solution.
--paul
hmm, suppose the husband has a computer. now, suppose he is asleep, so the computer is not doing much (seti and whatnot aside). now suppose the wife has a wireless mouse. suppose, now, software (screensaver-like thingy) is running on the computer so that when there is a slight movement of the mouse, it pops up, plays your favorite mp3 (or least favorite, if you want the poor guy to actually get up)
so, if the guy has a computer, he only needs to get a wireless mouse (or a long enough wire, perhaps would also work...) if he has that, then all he needs is this software, which i'm sure could be written by any number of people on here very easily and quickly.
--paul